The festival first started out at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 2012 and had over 10,000 attendees; Oakland hosted the following year. The festival gives cat lovers a chance to come together and celebrate adorable felines everywhere. It also gave viral video viewers an opportunity to meet some feline celebrities and to say hello to new faces. Wouldn’t you want to meet Grumpy Cat? (His real name is Tardar Sauce.)Avid cat-lovers worked behind the scenes to select 85 feline videos, from a pool of 15,000, to show at the event. The cat-lovers included William Braden. Braden is known for his series of short films starring his celebrity cat: Henri, le Chat Noir.

In an interview with David Moye of The Huffington Post, Braden explains, “For the last year and a half, I’ve been able to do this full time. I’m going to do this as long as I can.”

Braden stressed the fact that while showcasing the most popular videos is important, they also want to feature the undiscovered or overlooked videos.

The festival doesn’t just include the videos; it includes a cat-themed costume competition, and also has cat product vendors and representatives from local animal shelters and Humane Society chapters.

Braden, along with others, is already working on reviewing more videos to be displayed this summer in Minnesota where the “Golden Kitty Award” is up for grabs.

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